Creating “Hear My Voice” with each of you was truly an indescribable experience for me. I was gifted with the opportunity to learn so much from you, and I am grateful to have met such influential people. This project would not have such an impact without each of your generous spirits, wise words, unique experiences and, most importantly, willingness to speak out. Thank you so much for sharing your stories with me.

Thank you, also, to Rainbow Alley, Hope House of Colorado, Children's Hospital Colorado, The Phoenix, Golden Votes 16+ and Hide in Plain Sight for their help with this project.

Taylore Todd, 17, is a senior at Castle View High School in Castle Rock, where she is copy editor of the yearbook. She has been involved in the school’s journalism program for four years and has spent the past nine weeks interning at Colorado Community Media.

Todd was inspired to do this project by Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York.” She has always loved learning about people and their experiences and is passionate about advocating for social equality for people of all backgrounds. She used both interests to create the idea for “Hear My Voice.”

To report and write the stories for this project, she interviewed youths from Castle Rock to Arvada to Denver and other metro-area municipalities to find out how they see their place in today’s world.

“I haven’t been through a lot of the experiences they have been through,” Todd said of the young people she interviewed. “It made me aware of what more I can do. This world is going to be ours someday — it might as well start listening to us now.”